World Englishes

Jennifer Jenkins

A resource book for

students

Strand 6: English as a lingua

franca

Ambivalent attitude towards English as an

international lingua franca
Reasons for the international status of English:
Historical reasons
Internal political reasons
External economic reasons
Practical reasons
Intellectual reasons
Entertainment reasons
Personal advantage/prestige
(Crystal 1997)

A6

Mutual intelligibility and group identity

Intelligibility and identity: two opposing forces

Mutual intelligibility: accent differences decrease

Identity: accent differences increase

A6

Native and non-native speakers of

English
Arguments against using the terms native speaker and nonnative speaker:

Implies that monolingualism is norm (although multilingualism is

widespread)
Multlingual repertoires: L1/L2/L3 increasingly blurry
Implies that order of acquisition determines proficiency
Anglo speaker seen as reference point
Implies a unidirectional power relationship
Encourages simplistic view of what an error is
Negative perception of/among NNSs
Image of ideal NS
B6

The NS as target for language

learning: resulting questions

Who is the NS of a standard language?

Speaking English not related to cultural identity?
Regional accents accepted in NSs, regarded as poor
acquisition in NNSs?
Having to sound more British than the British?
EFL vs. ELF an important distinction?

B6

Alternatives to the NS/NNS distinction

Rampton 1990:
experts expertise
Advantages:
does not require identification, learned rather than
fixed or innate, relative, partial, can be challenged
Disadvantages:
non-expert value judgement

B6

Alternatives to the NS/NNS distinction

Jenkins 1996, 2000:
Monolingual English Speaker (MES)
Bilingual English Speaker (BES)
Non-Bilingual English Speaker (NBES)
Advantages:

MES less favourable than BES monolingualism is not the

preferable target
Removes L1/L2 distinction

Disadvantages:
Problematic distinction between BES and NBES
B6

English as a lingua franca (ELF)

ELF is used in contexts in which speakers with

different L1s (mostly, but not exclusively, from
Expanding Circle) need it as their means to
communicate with each other
ELF is an alternative to EFL rather than a
replacement for it depends on speakers (or
learners) individual needs and preferences

C6

English as a lingua franca (ELF)

EFL

ELF

Part of modern foreign

languages

Part of World Englishes

Deficit perspective

Difference perspective

Metaphors of transfer /
interference / fossilisation

Metaphor of contact / evolution

Code-mixing and switching are

seen as interfererence errors

Code-mixing and switching are

seen as bilingual resources

Kirkpatrick (2007b) adapted from Jenkins (2006c)

C6

English as a lingua franca (ELF)

ELF involves linguistic innovations that differ from ENL

and which, in some cases, are shared by most ELF
speakers
ELF involves the use of certain pragmatic
communication strategies, particularly accommodation
and code-switching. ELF forms crucially depend on the
specific communication context.
Descriptions of ELF that may lead to codification are
drawn from communication involving proficient ELF
speakers.
C6

ELF features

Lexicogrammar (Seidlhofer 2004)

e.g. dropping third person s, interchangeable use of who
and which, flexible use of articles, invariant tag questions,
additional prepositions, frequent use of verbs with high
semantic generality, heightened explicitness

Collaborative behaviour in interaction

e.g. supportive interruptions, positive minimal responses,
repetition, completion of the interlocutors sentences

Pronunciation
C6

ELF features

Pronunciation (Jenkins 2000)

Lingua Franca Core (LFC)

consonant sounds except th-sounds and dark l, vowel

length contrasts, avoidance of consonant deletion at the
beginnings of words, placement of nuclear stress

Non-core features
e.g. vowel quality, weak forms, assimilation, elision,
word stress

C6

ELF processes

ELF features are the result of processes similar to the ones

affecting ENL
Additional factors in ELF

language contact on a massive scale

intercultural communication

Acceleration of processes

Attitudes towards ELF

still scepticism/rejection among many linguists and ELT professionals

C6